A documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure that rules our nation and the world today. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money.
True story of the undersized Depression-era racehorse whose victories lifted not only the spirits of the team behind it but also those of their nation.
Jack L. Warner, Harry Warner, Albert Warner and Sam Warner were siblings who were born in Poland and emigrated to Canada near the turn of the century. In 1903, the brothers entered the budding motion picture business. In time, the Warner Brothers moved into film production and would open their own studio in 1923.
This film takes us into the harsh realm of BC's early coal mines, canneries, and lumber camps; where primitve conditions and speed-ups often cost lives. Then, the film moves through the unemployed' struggles of the '30s, post WWII equity campaigns, and into more recent public sector strikes over union rights.
In 1933 Oregon, Samuel Murphy is torn from his daughter and sent to a brutal work camp. Warden Clancy tempts him with early release if he smuggles gold through deadly wilderness, but betrayal festers within the crew, and Murphy questions how far he’ll go to see his child again.
Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.
Riding the Rails offers a visionary perspective on the presumed romanticism of the road and cautionary legacy of the Great Depression. The filmmakers relay the experiences and painful recollections of these now-elderly survivors of the rails. Forced to travel more by economic necessity than the spirit of adventure, the film's subjects dispel romantic myths of a hobo existence and its corresponding veneer of freedom. Riding the Rails recounts the hoboes' trade secrets for survival and accounts of dank miseries, loneliness, imprisonment, death, and dispossession. Sixty years later, the filmmakers transport their subjects back to the tracks, where the surging impact of sound and movement resuscitates memories of a shattered adolescence and devastating rite of passage.
Phar Lap, the big bold chestnut reigned as the king of the turf in the depression that gripped Australia of the 1930s. From his humble beginnings the New Zealand bred horse raced on to become the hero of a nation.
Hollywood is a town of tinsel and glamour; but there is another Hollywood, a place where maverick independent exploitation filmmakers went toe to toe with the big guys and came out on top.
In late eighties, in Ceausescu's Romania, a black market VHS bootlegger and a courageous female translator brought the magic of Western films to the Romanian people and sowed the seeds of a revolution.
World-renowned director Martin Scorsese narrates this journey through his favorites in Italian cinema.
As the dissociated convenience of the Internet and globalized corporate culture continue to shut down brick-and-mortar video stores, what will happen to the longstanding, local hangouts with their rugged individuals known as clerks and the communities who love them? Videosyncracy follows three very different video rental stores as they negotiate their survival in three distinct Los Angeles neighborhoods: Old Bank DVD in the Downtown arts district, Vidiots in sunny seaside Santa Monica, and Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee in bustling North Hollywood. Their stories chronicle not only the birth and twilight of a particular kind of corner store, but also decades of personal lives intertwined with those of their communities, the new challenges and facilities of a rapidly changing world, and an enduring love of the movies, a slice of Americana on the brink of disappearance yet defiant to the end.
Australian-born filmmaker George Miller offers a personal view of Australian films. He suggests that they can be regarded as visual music, public dreaming, mythology, and song-lines. In extrapolating the idea of movies as song-lines he examines feature films under the following categories: songs of the land; the bushman; the convicts; the bush-rangers; mates and larrikins; the digger; pommy bashing; the sheilas; gays; the wogs; blackfellas; and urban subversion. He then concludes that these films can be thought of as "Hymns that sing of Australia."
A lifelong love of flight inspires Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi, whose storied career includes the creation of the A-6M World War II fighter plane.
A documentary about the era of classic monster movies that were made at Universal Studios during the 1930s and 1940s.
A documentary capturing the modern day VHS culture and VHS collectors.
Home video changed the world. The cultural and historical impact of the VHS tape was enormous. This film traces the ripples of that impact by examining the myriad aspects of society that were altered by the creation of videotape.
"Ni Muy Muy, Ni Tan Tan, Simplemente, Tin Tan. Tin Tan was one of the greatest comdedian-actors in the history of Mexican Cinema. He began his film career during the early years of what became the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. Throughout the majority of his movies he plays the character of a pachuco; the Chicano/Mexicano in zoot suit, throwing out the tirili phrases and words, and jammin the jitty-bug. With the style and the slang down to a tee, he was picked up in Cd. Juarez Chihuahua by an acting troupe. Touring extensively through-out Mexico with the troupe landed him in Mexico City with film contracts. It was in those films that Tin Tan exposed the image of the pachuco, which Mexican Youth adopted. From the desert border-towns of Juarez y El Paso the style took off in various parts of the country, most notably in Mexico City
Black and white evokes nostalgia for The Great Depression. Things were so cheap, including lives. We see daredevils (desperate people) compete for money prizes. Baby prepares for WW2. [Originally a 70mm projection-performance, 1982, by Ken and Flo Jacobs. From THRILLS AND CHILLS (Castle Films, c. 1930)].
Haunted by his mysterious past, a devoted high school football coach leads a scrawny team of orphans to the state championship during the Great Depression and inspires a broken nation along the way.